GNU Image Manipulation Program
GNU Image Manipulation Program
User Manual
Copyright © 2002-2024 The GIMP Documentation Team
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Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. A copy of the license is included in the section entitled GNU Free Documentation License .
Table of Contents
Preface 1. GIMP User Manual Authors and Contributors I. Getting Started 1. Introduction 1. Welcome to GIMP 1.1. Authors 1.2. The GIMP Help system 1.3. Features and Capabilities 2. What's new in GIMP 2. Fire up GIMP 1. Running GIMP 1.1. Known Platforms 1.2. Language 1.3. Command Line Arguments 2. Configuration Folders 2.1. Tips and Tricks 3. First Steps with GIMP 1. Basic Concepts 2. Main Windows 2.1. The Toolbox 2.2. Image Window 2.3. Dialogs and Docking 3. Undoing 3.1. Things That Cannot be Undone 4. Common Tasks 4.1. Intention 4.2. Change the Size of an Image for the screen 4.3. Change the Size of an Image for print 4.4. Compressing Images 4.5. Crop An Image 4.6. Find Info About Your Image 4.7. Change the Mode 4.8. Flip An Image 4.9. Rotate An Image 4.10. Separating an Object From Its Background 5. How to Draw Straight Lines 5.1. Intention 5.2. Examples 4. What to do if you are stuck 1. Introduction 2. Common Causes of GIMP Non-Responsiveness 2.1. There is a floating selection 2.2. The selection is hidden 2.3. You are acting outside the selection 2.4. The active drawable is not visible 2.5. The active drawable is transparent 2.6. You are trying to act outside the layer 2.7. You are trying to act on a layer group 2.8. The image is in indexed color mode. 2.9. No visible effect when trying to use a brush, eraser or other tool 2.10. No visible effect when trying to use the move tool, rotate or other transform tool 2.11. Eraser and brushes no longer work 2.12. Eraser does not make area transparent 2.13. Unexpected colors when trying to use a brush or eraser 2.14. The crop tool leaves an empty area after cropping 2.15. I've been waiting for a long time and GIMP is not responding 2.16. General guidelines on what to check if you are stuck 3. How to fix missing windows and dialogs 3.1. All tool windows are missing 3.2. Tool options dialog is missing 3.3. Some of the tool icons are missing 3.4. The area showing the opened images at the top is missing 4. How to fix problems exporting images 4.1. I am exporting to a jpeg image and my transparent area turned white or black 4.2. I am exporting to a gif image and the colors changed II. How do I Become a GIMP Wizard? 5. Getting Images into GIMP 1. Image Types 2. Creating new Files 3. Opening Files 3.1. Open File 3.2. Open Location 3.3. Open Recent 3.4. Using External Programs 3.5. File Manager 3.6. Drag and Drop 3.7. Copy and Paste 3.8. Image Browser 6. Getting Images out of GIMP 1. Files 1.1. Save / Export Images 1.2. File Formats 2. Preparing your Images for the Web 2.1. Images with an Optimal Size/Quality Ratio 2.2. Reducing the File Size Even More 2.3. Saving Images with Transparency 7. Painting with GIMP 1. The Selection 1.1. Feathering 1.2. Making a Selection Partially Transparent 2. Creating and Using Selections 2.1. Moving or Resizing a Selection 2.2. Adding or subtracting selections 3. The QuickMask 3.1. Overview 3.2. Properties 4. Using QuickMask Mode 5. Paths 5.1. Path Creation 5.2. Path Properties 5.3. Paths and Selections 5.4. Transforming Paths 5.5. Stroking a Path 5.6. Paths and Text 5.7. Paths and SVG files 6. Brushes 7. Adding New Brushes 8. The GIH Dialog Box 9. Changing brush size 9.1. How to change the size of a brush 9.2. Creating a brush quickly 10. Gradients 11. Patterns 12. Palettes 12.1. Colormap 13. Presets 14. Drawing Simple Objects 14.1. Drawing a Straight Line 14.2. Creating a Basic Shape 8. Combining Images 1. Introduction to Layers 1.1. Layer Properties 2. Layer Modes 2.1. Normal Layer Modes 2.2. Lighten Layer Modes 2.3. Darken Layer Modes 2.4. Contrast Layer Modes 2.5. Inversion Layer Modes 2.6. HSV Components Layer Modes 2.7. LCh Components Layer Modes 3. Legacy Layer Modes 4. Creating New Layers 5. Layer Groups 9. Text Management 1. Text Management 1.1. Text Area 1.2. Managing Text Layer 1.3. Text Toolbox 1.4. Text Context Menu 2. Text 2.1. Embellishing Text 2.2. Adding Fonts 2.3. Font Problems 10. Enhancing Photographs 1. Working with Digital Camera Photos 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Improving Composition 1.3. Improving Colors 1.4. Adjusting Sharpness 1.5. Removing Unwanted Objects from an Image 1.6. Saving Your Results 11. Color Management with GIMP 1. Color Management in GIMP 1.1. Problems of a non Color Managed Workflow 1.2. Introduction to a Color Managed Workflow 12. Enrich my GIMP 1. Preferences Dialog 1.1. Introduction 1.2. System Resources 1.3. Debugging 1.4. Color Management 1.5. Image Import and Export 1.6. Experimental Playground 1.7. Tool Options 1.8. Default Image Preferences 1.9. Default Image Grid 1.10. Interface 1.11. Theme 1.12. Icon Theme 1.13. Toolbox 1.14. Dialog Defaults 1.15. Help System 1.16. Display 1.17. Window Management 1.18. Image Windows 1.19. Image Window Appearance 1.20. Image Window Title and Statusbar 1.21. Image Window Snapping Behavior 1.22. Input Devices 1.23. Input Controllers 1.24. Folders 1.25. Data Folders 2. Grids and Guides 2.1. The Image Grid 2.2. Guides 3. Rendering a Grid 4. How to Set Your Tile Cache 5. Creating Shortcuts to Menu Commands 6. Customize Splash-Screen 13. Scripting 1. Plugins 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Using Plugins 1.3. Installing New Plugins 1.4. Writing Plugins 2. Using Script-Fu Scripts 2.1. Script-Fu? 2.2. Installing Script-Fu scripts 2.3. Do's and Don'ts 2.4. Different Kinds Of Script-Fus 3. A Script-Fu Tutorial 3.1. Getting Acquainted With Scheme 3.2. Variables And Functions 3.3. Lists, Lists And More Lists 3.4. Your First Script-Fu Script 3.5. Giving Our Script Some Guts 3.6. Extending The Text Box Script 3.7. Your script and its working III. Function Reference 14. Tools 1. The Toolbox 1.1. Introduction 1.2. Tool Icons 1.3. Color and Indicator Area 1.4. Tool Options 2. Selection Tools 2.1. Common Features 2.2. Rectangle Selection 2.3. Ellipse Selection 2.4. Free Selection (Lasso) 2.5. Fuzzy selection (Magic wand) 2.6. Select By Color 2.7. Intelligent Scissors 2.8. Foreground Select 3. Paint Tools 3.1. Common Features 3.2. Dynamics 3.3. Brush Tools (Pencil, Paintbrush, Airbrush) 3.4. Bucket Fill 3.5. Gradient 3.6. Pencil 3.7. Paintbrush 3.8. MyPaint Brush 3.9. Eraser 3.10. Airbrush 3.11. Ink 3.12. Clone 3.13. Heal 3.14. Perspective Clone 3.15. Blur/Sharpen 3.16. Smudge 3.17. Dodge/Burn 4. Transform Tools 4.1. Common Features 4.2. Align 4.3. Move 4.4. Crop 4.5. Rotate 4.6. Scale 4.7. Shear 4.8. Perspective 4.9. 3D Transform 4.10. Unified Transform 4.11. Handle Transform 4.12. Flip 4.13. The Cage Tool 4.14. Warp Transform 5. Other 5.1. Overview 5.2. Paths 5.3. Color Picker 5.4. Zoom 5.5. Measure 5.6. Text 5.7. GEGL Operation 15. Dialogs 1. Dialog Introduction 2. Image Structure Related Dialogs 2.1. Layers Dialog 2.2. Channels Dialog 2.3. Paths Dialog 2.4. Colormap Dialog 2.5. Histogram dialog 2.6. Navigation Dialog 2.7. Undo History Dialog 3. Image-content Related Dialogs 3.1. FG/BG Color Dialog 3.2. Brushes Dialog 3.3. MyPaint Brushes Dialog 3.4. Patterns Dialog 3.5. Gradients Dialog 3.6. Palettes Dialog 3.7. Tagging 3.8. Fonts Dialog 4. Image Management Related Dialogs 4.1. Buffers Dialog 4.2. Images Dialog 4.3. Document History Dialog 4.4. Templates Dialog 5. Miscellaneous Dialogs 5.1. Tool Presets Dialog 5.2. Tool Preset Editor 5.3. Device Status Dialog 5.4. Error Console 5.5. Dashboard 5.6. Save File 5.7. Export File 5.8. Sample Points Dialog 5.9. Pointer Dialog 5.10. Symmetry Painting dialog 5.11. Keyboard Shortcuts Dialog 16. Menus 1. Introduction to Menus 1.1. The Image Menu Bar 1.2. Context Menus 1.3. Tear-off menus 1.4. Tab menus 2. The “ File ” Menu 2.1. Overview 2.2. New… 2.3. Create 2.4. File Open… 2.5. Open as Layers… 2.6. Open Location… 2.7. Open Recent 2.8. Save 2.9. Save as… 2.10. Save a Copy… 2.11. Revert 2.12. Export… and Overwrite… 2.13. Export As… 2.14. Create Template… 2.15. Print 2.16. Send by Email 2.17. Copy Image Location 2.18. Show in File Manager 2.19. Close 2.20. Close all 2.21. Quit 3. The “ Edit ” Menu 3.1. “ Edit ” Menu Entries 3.2. Undo 3.3. Redo 3.4. Undo History 3.5. Cut 3.6. Copy 3.7. Copy Visible 3.8. Paste 3.9. Paste Into Selection 3.10. Paste In Place 3.11. Paste Into Selection In Place 3.12. Paste as 3.13. Buffer 3.14. Clear 3.15. Fill with FG Color 3.16. Fill with BG Color 3.17. Fill with Pattern 3.18. Fill Selection Outline 3.19. Fill Path 3.20. Stroke Selection 3.21. Stroke Path 3.22. Preferences 3.23. Input Devices 3.24. Keyboard Shortcuts 3.25. Modules 3.26. Units 4. The “ Select ” Menu 4.1. Introduction to the “ Select ” Menu 4.2. Select All 4.3. None 4.4. Invert 4.5. Float 4.6. By Color 4.7. From Path 4.8. Selection Editor 4.9. Feather 4.10. Sharpen 4.11. Shrink 4.12. Grow 4.13. Border 4.14. Remove Holes 4.15. Distort 4.16. Rounded Rectangle 4.17. Toggle QuickMask 4.18. Save to Channel 4.19. To Path 5. The “ View ” Menu 5.1. Introduction to the “ View ” Menu 5.2. New View 5.3. Show All 5.4. Dot for Dot 5.5. Zoom 5.6. Flip & Rotate (0°) 5.7. Center Image in Window 5.8. Shrink Wrap 5.9. Full Screen 5.10. Navigation Window 5.11. Display Filters 5.12. Color Management 5.13. Show Selection 5.14. Show Layer Boundary 5.15. Show Canvas Boundary 5.16. Show Guides 5.17. Show Grid 5.18. Show Sample Points 5.19. Snap to Guides 5.20. Snap to Grid 5.21. Snap to Canvas 5.22. Snap to Active Path 5.23. Padding Color 5.24. Show Menubar 5.25. Show Rulers 5.26. Show Scrollbars 5.27. Show Statusbar 6. The “ Image ” Menu 6.1. Overview 6.2. Duplicate 6.3. Mode 6.4. RGB mode 6.5. Grayscale mode 6.6. Indexed mode 6.7. Precision 6.8. Color Management 6.9. Enable Color Management 6.10. Assign Color Profile 6.11. Convert to Color Profile 6.12. Discard Color Profile 6.13. Save Color Profile to File 6.14. Transform 6.15. Flip Horizontally; Flip Vertically 6.16. Rotation 6.17. Canvas Size 6.18. Fit Canvas to Layers 6.19. Fit Canvas to Selection 6.20. Print Size 6.21. Scale Image 6.22. Crop Image 6.23. Slice Using Guides 6.24. Zealous Crop 6.25. Merge Visible Layers 6.26. Flatten Image 6.27. Align Visible Layers… 6.28. Guides 6.29. New Guide 6.30. New Guide (by Percent) 6.31. New Guides from Selection 6.32. Remove all guides 6.33. Configure Grid… 6.34. Image Properties 6.35. Metadata 6.36. Metadata Viewer 6.37. Metadata Editor 7. The “ Layer ” Menu 7.1. Introduction to the “ Layer ” Menu 7.2. New Layer 7.3. New From Visible 7.4. New Layer Group 7.5. Duplicate layer 7.6. Anchor layer 7.7. Merge Down 7.8. Merge Layer Group 7.9. Delete Layer 7.10. The Text Commands of the Layer Menu 7.11. Discard Text Information 7.12. “ Stack ” Submenu 7.13. Select Previous Layer 7.14. Select Next Layer 7.15. Select Top Layer 7.16. Select Bottom Layer 7.17. Raise Layer 7.18. Lower Layer 7.19. Layer to Top 7.20. Layer to Bottom 7.21. The “ Reverse Layer Order ” command 7.22. The “ Mask ” Submenu 7.23. Add Layer Mask 7.24. Apply Layer Mask 7.25. Delete Layer Mask 7.26. Show Layer Mask 7.27. Edit Layer Mask 7.28. Disable Layer Mask 7.29. Mask to Selection 7.30. Add Layer Mask to Selection 7.31. Subtract Layer Mask from Selection 7.32. Intersect Layer Mask with Selection 7.33. The “ Transparency ” Submenu of the “ Layer ” menu 7.34. Add Alpha Channel 7.35. Remove Alpha Channel 7.36. Color to Alpha 7.37. Semi-flatten 7.38. Threshold Alpha 7.39. Alpha to Selection 7.40. Add Alpha channel to Selection 7.41. Subtract from Selection 7.42. Intersect Alpha channel with Selection 7.43. The “ Transform ” Submenu 7.44. Flip Horizontally 7.45. Flip Vertically 7.46. Rotate 90° clockwise 7.47. Rotate 90° counter-clockwise 7.48. Rotate 180° 7.49. Arbitrary Rotation 7.50. Offset 7.51. Layer Boundary Size 7.52. Layer to Image Size 7.53. Scale Layer 7.54. Crop Layer 8. The “ Colors ” Menu 8.1. Introduction to the “ Colors ” Menu 8.2. Color Balance 8.3. Color Temperature 8.4. Hue Chroma 8.5. Hue-Saturation 8.6. Saturation 8.7. Exposure 8.8. Shadows-Highlights 8.9. Brightness-Contrast 8.10. Levels 8.11. Curves 8.12. Invert 8.13. Linear Invert 8.14. Value Invert 8.15. The “ Auto ” Submenu 8.16. Equalize 8.17. White Balance 8.18. Stretch Contrast 8.19. Stretch Contrast HSV 8.20. Color Enhance 8.21. Color Enhance (legacy) 8.22. The “ Components ” Submenu 8.23. Channel Mixer 8.24. Extract Component 8.25. Mono Mixer 8.26. Compose 8.27. Decompose 8.28. Recompose 8.29. The “ Desaturate ” Submenu 8.30. Color to Gray 8.31. Desaturate 8.32. Mono Mixer 8.33. Sepia 8.34. The “ Map ” Submenu 8.35. Rearrange Colormap 8.36. Set Colormap 8.37. Alien Map 8.38. Color Exchange 8.39. Rotate Colors 8.40. Gradient Map 8.41. Palette Map 8.42. Sample Colorize 8.43. The “ Tone Mapping ” Submenu 8.44. Fattal et al. 2002 8.45. Mantiuk 2006 8.46. Reinhard 2005 8.47. Stress 8.48. Retinex 8.49. The “ Info ” Submenu 8.50. Histogram 8.51. Border Average 8.52. Colorcube Analysis 8.53. Export Histogram 8.54. Smooth Palette 8.55. Threshold 8.56. Colorize 8.57. Posterize 8.58. Color to Alpha… 8.59. Dither 8.60. RGB Clip 8.61. Hot… 9. The “ Tools ” Menu 9.1. Introduction to the “ Tools ” Menu 10. The “ Filters ” Menu 10.1. Introduction to the “ Filters ” Menu 10.2. Repeat Last 10.3. Re-show Last 10.4. Reset All Filters 10.5. The “ Python-Fu ” Submenu 10.6. The “ Script-Fu ” Submenu 11. “ Windows ” Menu 12. The “ Help ” Menu 12.1. Introduction to the “ Help ” Menu 12.2. Help 12.3. Context Help 12.4. Tip of the Day 12.5. About 12.6. Search and Run a Command 12.7. Plug-In Browser 12.8. The Procedure Browser 12.9. Bug Reports and Feature Requests 12.10. GIMP online 12.11. User Manual 17. Filters 1. Introduction 2. Common Features 3. Blur Filters 3.1. Introduction 3.2. Focus Blur 3.3. Gaussian Blur 3.4. Lens Blur 3.5. Mean Curvature Blur 3.6. Median Blur 3.7. Pixelize 3.8. Selective Gaussian Blur 3.9. Variable Blur 3.10. Circular Motion Blur 3.11. Linear Motion Blur 3.12. Zoom Motion Blur 3.13. Tileable Blur 4. Enhance Filters 4.1. Introduction 4.2. Antialias 4.3. Deinterlace 4.4. High Pass 4.5. Noise Reduction 4.6. Red Eye Removal 4.7. Symmetric Nearest Neighbor 4.8. Sharpen (Unsharp Mask) 4.9. Despeckle 4.10. Destripe 4.11. NL Filter 4.12. Wavelet Decompose 5. Distort Filters 5.1. Introduction 5.2. Apply Lens 5.3. Emboss 5.4. Engrave 5.5. Lens Distortion 5.6. Kaleidoscope 5.7. Mosaic 5.8. Newsprint 5.9. Polar Coordinates 5.10. Ripple 5.11. Shift 5.12. Spherize 5.13. Value Propagate 5.14. Video 5.15. Waves 5.16. Whirl and Pinch 5.17. Wind 5.18. Curve Bend 5.19. Emboss (legacy) 5.20. Page Curl 6. Light and Shadow Filters 6.1. Introduction 6.2. Bloom 6.3. Supernova 6.4. Lens Flare 6.5. Gradient Flare 6.6. Lighting Effects 6.7. Sparkle 6.8. Drop Shadow 6.9. Long Shadow 6.10. Vignette 6.11. Drop Shadow (legacy) 6.12. Perspective 6.13. Xach-Effect 7. Noise Filters 7.1. Introduction 7.2. CIE lch Noise 7.3. HSV Noise 7.4. Hurl 7.5. Pick 7.6. RGB Noise 7.7. Slur 7.8. Spread 8. Edge-Detect Filters 8.1. Introduction 8.2. Difference of Gaussians 8.3. Edge 8.4. Laplace 8.5. Neon 8.6. Sobel 8.7. Image Gradient 9. Generic Filters 9.1. Introduction 9.2. Convolution Matrix 9.3. Distance Map 9.4. GEGL graph 9.5. Normal Map 9.6. Dilate 9.7. Erode 10. Combine Filters 10.1. Introduction 10.2. Depth Merge 10.3. Filmstrip 11. Artistic Filters 11.1. Introduction 11.2. Apply Canvas 11.3. Cartoon 11.4. Cubism 11.5. Glass Tile 11.6. Oilify 11.7. Photocopy 11.8. Simple Linear Iterative Clustering (SLIC) 11.9. Softglow 11.10. Waterpixels 11.11. Cartoon (legacy) 11.12. Clothify 11.13. GIMPressionist 11.14. Oilify (legacy) 11.15. Predator 11.16. Softglow (legacy) 11.17. Van Gogh (LIC) 11.18. Weave 12. Decor Filters 12.1. Introduction 12.2. Add Bevel 12.3. Add Border 12.4. Coffee Stain 12.5. Fog 12.6. Fuzzy Border 12.7. Old Photo 12.8. Round Corners 12.9. Slide 12.10. Stencil Carve 12.11. Stencil Chrome 13. Map Filters 13.1. Introduction 13.2. Bump Map 13.3. Displace 13.4. Fractal Trace 13.5. Illusion 13.6. Little Planet 13.7. Panorama Projection 13.8. Recursive Transform 13.9. Paper Tile 13.10. Tile Seamless 13.11. Fractal Trace (legacy) 13.12. Map Object 13.13. Tile 14. Rendering Filters 14.1. Introduction 14.2. Flame 14.3. Fractal Explorer 14.4. IFS Fractal 14.5. Cell Noise 14.6. Perlin Noise 14.7. Plasma 14.8. Simplex Noise 14.9. Solid Noise 14.10. Difference Clouds 14.11. Bayer Matrix 14.12. Checkerboard 14.13. Diffraction Patterns 14.14. Grid 14.15. Linear Sinusoid 14.16. Maze 14.17. Sinus 14.18. Spiral 14.19. Checkerboard (legacy) 14.20. CML Explorer 14.21. Grid (legacy) 14.22. Jigsaw 14.23. Qbist 14.24. Spyrogimp 14.25. Circuit 14.26. Gfig 14.27. Lava 14.28. Line Nova 14.29. Sphere Designer 15. Web Filters 15.1. Introduction 15.2. ImageMap 15.3. Semi-Flatten 15.4. Slice 16. Animation Filters 16.1. Introduction 16.2. Blend 16.3. Burn-In 16.4. Rippling 16.5. Spinning Globe 16.6. Waves 16.7. Optimize 16.8. Playback I. Keys and Mouse Reference File — Key reference for the File menu Edit — Key reference for Edit menu Select — Key reference for Select menu View — Key reference for View menu Image — Key reference for Image menu Layers — Key reference for Layer menu Tools — Key reference for the Tools menu Filters — Key reference for Filters menu Windows — Key reference for Windows menu Help — Key reference for Help menu Zoom tool — Key reference for the Zoom tool Glossary Bibliography A. GIMP History 1. The Very Beginning 2. The Early Days of GIMP 3. The One to Change the World 4. Version 2.0 5. What's New in GIMP 2.2? 6. What's New in GIMP 2.4? 7. What's New in GIMP 2.6? 8. What's New in GIMP 2.8? 9. What's new in GIMP 2.10? B. Reporting Bugs and Requesting Enhancements 1. Making sure it's a Bug 2. Reporting the Bug C. How to Contribute 1. Prerequisites 1.1. Join Discourse 1.2. Create a Local Working Copy of Code 1.3. Installing your sandbox 1.4. The gimp-help folder 2. Workflow 2.1. Writing 2.2. Validating 2.3. Images 2.4. Create HTML Files 2.5. Sending your files 3. Annexes 4. Working under Windows D. Tone Mapping and Shadow Recovery Using GIMP’s ‘Colors/Exposure’ 1. High bit depth GIMP’s floating point “Colors/Exposure”: much better than Curves for lightening the shadows and midtones of an image without blowing the highlights 2. A step-by-step example showing how to recover shadow information using high bit depth GIMP’s floating point “Colors/Exposure” 3. Use Notes 4. Conclusion E. GNU Free Documentation License 1. PREAMBLE 2. APPLICABILITY AND DEFINITIONS 3. VERBATIM COPYING 4. COPYING IN QUANTITY 5. MODIFICATIONS 6. COMBINING DOCUMENTS 7. COLLECTIONS OF DOCUMENTS 8. AGGREGATION WITH INDEPENDENT WORKS 9. TRANSLATION 10. TERMINATION 11. FUTURE REVISIONS OF THIS LICENSE 12. ADDENDUM: How to use this License for your documents F. Eeek! There is Missing Help Index Preface Report a bug in GIMP Report a documentation error